Sign up or log in to save this to your schedule and see who's attending!

The Roles of Father and Mother in Rural Appalachian Society: A Study of Grundy County, TN (Paper) Alice Bradford Through the Leyburn grant, I conducted field work (including interviews and observation) in Grundy County, TN to analyze family life in rural Appalachia, specifically how the roles of mothers and fathers contributed to family stability, in a low-income, nearly-impoverished, low-employment region of the southern United States. I submitted my research (in full paper format) to Professor Goluboff, which included my original background research on Appalachia, statistical data, interview notes from 5 families, and a number of analyses and conclusions that I drew. I experienced many setbacks during my first attempt at field work (from which I have learned a great deal), and I am immensely passionate about this topic, as I have spent much of my life in rural Tennessee, and as I hope to potentially build upon this topic in a senior Anthropology capstone.

Time to Push: An Ethnographic Study of Reactions to Socially Unsanctioned Pregnancies in Gozo, Malta (Paper) Stephanie Chung This paper presents the results of an ethnographic study conducted over a period of three weeks in Gozo, Malta concerning responses toward socially unsanctioned pregnancies and forms of motherhood. Gozo is the second largest of the populated islands of the archipelago nation in which the Catholic religion has traditionally held strong influence. In Gozo, socially unsanctioned pregnancies fall into two major, although not exclusive, categories: teenaged pregnancies and pregnancies occurring outside the bounds of matrimony. The ethnographic research was done primarily through semi-formal and informal interviews with a variety of informants throughout the island of Gozo. The results gathered during this research drive me to suggest that while there are high levels of social stigma directed at women with socially unsanctioned pregnancies from both institutions and individuals, some attitudes might be changing as socially unsanctioned pregnancies become more common.

Do Beer Taxes Affect Birth Rates Among Teens and Young Women in the U.S.? (Paper) Lizzy Stanton Alcohol abuse among young people and underage drinking in the U.S. lead to many adverse outcomes, including unintended pregnancy. One potential way to limit alcohol abuse – and therefore its negative outcomes – is to raise the price of beer. I therefore use beer tax as a proxy for beer consumption, with a higher beer tax being associated with lower beer consumption. I build on previous literature by using state-level data to investigate the relationship between beer taxes and pregnancy outcomes. The paper contributes to the literature by providing the first analysis of the effect of beer taxes on overall birth rates, as well as number of births by race, marital status, and age of the father for 15-19 and 20-24 year old mothers. Results are forthcoming.

UnFeres of Them All (Paper) Ann Cox My research paper, UnFeres of Them All: Holding a Mirror up to the Genesis Test in Prenatal Injury Claims, explores the real life consequences of applying a military immunity doctrine to the modern military force, especially female service members. My solution suggests that the answer lies not in adopting a new standard or rejecting the Feres doctrine, but simply returning to the doctrine’s original rationales.